More than 250 players signed with Big Ten football programs last Wednesday. That got me to thinking: Where is all the talent coming from?

I analyzed every team's class and the hometowns of each signee to figure out which states produced the most Big Ten 2014 recruits. That yielded a list of 17 states from which Big Ten schools landed at least three players in this year's class. Some thoughts on the results:

Not surprisingly, Ohio leads the way with 37 signees. The Buckeye State has long been the main feeding ground for Big Ten schools. Every team except Iowa and Nebraska had at least one signee from Ohio, while Ohio State led the way with nine. Indiana was next with six.

Another expected result was that Florida finished second among the states producing signees, with 27. The Sunshine State is so talent-rich that it's almost impossible not to recruit there, even if Big Ten schools aren't always getting the top players out of the state. Wisconsin had more Florida signees than any Big Ten school with seven. Northwestern and Minnesota were the only schools not to sign a Florida player this year.

Illinois had 26 signees, and it was the only state to produce a signee for all 12 Big Ten schools. Tim Beckman's Illini signed five home-state players, while Northwestern, Penn State and Michigan State reeled in four apiece.

Georgia was also a popular place for Big Ten coaches, as 17 signees hail from the Peach State. Indiana remained active in Georgia, signing five players from there. Who says SEC country is off limits for the Big Ten? Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana combined to produce 29 Big Ten recruits this year.

Texas ranked fifth with 16 signees, and a quarter of them went to Nebraska. Texas and California are two huge recruiting pipelines, but the Big Ten landed only three players out of the Golden State.

Talent varies from year to year, but I was surprised to see only 15 Big Ten signees from Michigan. Of those, nine went to either Michigan State or Michigan. Pennsylvania, another traditional Big Ten hotbed, produced only nine league recruits, with a third of them staying home to go to Penn State.

Just how important are the additions of Rutgers and Maryland to Big Ten recruiting? Big Ten schools signed 14 players out of New Jersey and New York combined, and 19 out of Maryland/Virginia/Washington, D.C. You can probably expect those numbers to increase in the future.

Speaking of Maryland and Rutgers, I didn't include the new schools in this study. Rutgers made hay in New Jersey (eight signees) and Florida (seven), while Maryland signed seven players out of its own state and D.C. The two schools also combined to bring in five players from Pennsylvania.

Minnesota produced eight recruits, and all eight signed with the Gophers. Similarly, all five Iowa prospects cast their lot with the Hawkeyes, and eight of the nine Indiana signees went to either Purdue or the Hoosiers.